Tag Archives: ebay

“Bought Nobby’s Subbuteo off of him for £3 record token”

I wrote about Subbuteo back in July 1972. In what has always proved immensely curious to me, that one post has historically received more hits than ANY other on EFA70sTRO… and by a very significant margin.

So, to all you apparently rabid Subbuteo geeks, I say “Hello, thank you for reading” and “It’s good to have you back again”

A few weeks ago I informed Nobby of this impending post and how he had apparently sold me his Subbuteo stuff for little more than a £3 record token. (Presumably representing ¾ of my birthday present?)

I felt it prudent to warn him in advance so as to diffuse at least some of his vociferous anger that may otherwise been directed at me had he read this the same time as the rest of you.

The reason for this is that several years ago, wanting to introduce his own teenage son to the delights of Subbuteo, he spent many weeks scouring the portals of eBay attempting to snap up an entire set of equipment on which to play this classic table football game.

He was eventually succesful (I think?) but, at some point in his quest, he remarked to me that he had no recollection of where his original Subbuteo went and was a little pissed off that he had ever got rid of it.

Well, now the truth’s out. Poor bugger traded it for a mere £3 record token which, who knows, he may have wasted on a Genesis album or something?

Track Records was a label set up by The Who’s managers, Chris Stamp & Kit Lambert, so it’s no wonder that their boys get the lion’s share of cuts, and “Magic Bus” has always been one of my favourite Townshend & Co cuts (outside of the “Quadrophenia” album… more about that in a later post).

For the unaware, John’s Children was an early incarnation of T.Rex’s Marc Bolan. The cut here, “Desdemona“, was actually banned by the BBC when it came out, the lyric “Lift up your skirt and fly” evidently corrupting the youth of Britain. There’s really no doubting Bolan’s distinctive warble in the background is there?

“Fire” is, as this blog has mentioned before, a psychedelic prog rock classic of the very highest order. We tip our (probably flaming) hat to Arthur Brown for that one!

The Sandpebbles “Love Power” was their one and only R&B hit (at least, in the USA), whilst The Precisions – another R&B offering by Track – were probably the only Motown-sounding band from Detroit who weren’t actually signed to Motown!

Let’s face it, Fairport Convention are never worth talking about.

The Parliaments - that's George Clinton on the right!

However, The Parliaments are hugely notable for being the precursor to Funkadelic & Parliament, all featuring the one and only P-funkmeister; Mr George Clinton. (Many of The Parliaments songs were later re-recorded by both bands after a label dispute was settled in the early 70’s)

Thunderclap Newman had one hit single during their brief career, the sublime “Something in the Air“. Newman himself was a Dixieland jazz pianist, whilst the band featured not only an uncredited Pete Townshend on guitar, but a 15-year-old axe virtuoso, Jimmy McCullogh, who later went on to play in Stone the Crows, Paul McCartney’s Wings and an ill-advised 1977 reformation of The Small Faces. (McCullogh died of a heroin overdose in 1979, aged just 26)

You do have to say though that for the Hendrix and Who tracks alone this album was worth every penny of its entrance fee. Surprisingly, it wasn’t an album I held on to… which in retrospect is one hell of a shame as original UK copies regularly fetch three figure sums on the likes of eBay. (Mainly because it’s the only album where that studio version of The Who’s “Young Man Blues” appears)

——————————————————–

Just to let you know, EFA70sTRO posts will continue to appear a little sporadically for a week or so. This is due to the necessary ‘catch up’ following my battle with the flu. Once again, apologies to all the regular readers out there.

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be…

When I was 8 (in 1966) my parents held quite a large birthday party for me. When I say ‘large’ I mean I had half-a-dozen or so school chums come to the house and we all over-indulged in jelly, cake and orange squash.

At the end of the night I somehow ended up with a pair of doubled-up birthday presents.

The hot toy in 1965/66 was Corgi’s model of James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, featured in the film “Thunderball“. This car captured many kid’s imaginations because it was tricked out with, amongst other things, radiator cannons, tire slashers, oil slick squirters, a bullet-proof shield and… perhaps best of all… an ejector seat where 007 could send his passenger/assailant flying into the air via a flip-up roof.

I think it appealed to grown men too?… it being a model of one of THE sexiest and most beautiful cars ever designed!

Corgi’s little model was very much ‘on the money’ in looks, adding many of the special spy features just for good luck.

It feels amazing that at the age of 8 years old I somehow had to two of them!

I know that, for the longest time, I played with one and kept the other one in the box. It would have looked like this….

Now, I have ZERO idea – naturally – what happened to that second Aston Martin. Maybe I succumbed to playing with it, duelling two DB5’s against one another, flying it down the stairs, or maybe I just gave it away to another kid? (I did have the habit of giving toys away, much to my parents chagrin)

It somewhat pains me to report that IF I had managed to hold onto that second model, in perfect condition, until now I could easily sell it for up to £500 or $1000! Therefore, permit me if you will, a little silent whimper under my breath.

Searching for something completely unrelated on eBay a few weeks ago – in fact I can’t even remember what the search term was – a new Corgi version of that original DB5 model, at what seemed like a great price, caught my eye and, once again, my imagination. I felt a very rare wave of ‘needy nostalgia’ waft over me, and before I really knew it I was snapping this auction up using the “Buy It Now” feature and immediately Paypalling my cash over to the seller!!

It turned up a week later….

Just like the old days, I ripped it out of its box….

… and just like the old days I had to try out all the special features like the bullet-proof shield, the extending fenders (bumpers) and the ejector seat

For a short while I was mentally transported back to 1965, playing with car on the dining table of my parents first house on Market Street. I remembered my late Mum shouting at me to “get those toys off the table because dinner will be ready in a minute” and I remembered times of pitting MY DB5 against friends’ DB5s in boyhood races down garden paths and across bedroom floors. I remembered marking the bottom of my DB5 so it wouldn’t get mistaken for my friend’s, and – like almost EVERY kid who played with this toy in the 60’s – I even remembered the heartbreak I felt when I lost the little model villain following a particularly unfortunate ejection sequence. In my case, the l’il dude went through the fire screen and suffered a particularly ‘melty demise’ in our front room fireplace. I probably cried. I remembered that the toy never felt the same afterwards. (Maybe that’s when I opened the second box?).

They were all the briefest of memories that flashed across my withering brain, but they all made me grin like the proverbial Cheshire cat. Let’s face it – as you readers are maybe already muttering to yourselves – TRO can do with ANY memories he can muster really!

This 50-year-old then stopped playing with the car and carefully placed it in prime viewing position on the radiator cover here in my office.

It really IS one of THE sexiest and most beautifully-designed cars ever! If my wife reads this, can I have a real one for my birthday please! What if I promise never to use the ejector seat option on you?

about a blog

I am a fifty-something ex-pat Brit transplanted into America’s Mid-West. When I finally got around to unpacking all the boxes I shipped across the Atlantic, I found the “schoolboy diaries” I dutifully wrote in during the 1970’s.

I decided, as a fun endeavour, to document, share and comment upon many of the diary entries.

Posts will be in chronological order starting in 1972 and will gently travel from my 14-year old insecure geeky phase through to my involvement in the UK ‘punk movement’ at the end of the decade.